


A Long Day

by captainshellhead, vibraniumstark



Series: We Meet at Dawn and Dusk [3]
Category: Temeraire - Naomi Novik
Genre: Book 6: Tongues of Serpents, Falling In Love, Fluff, M/M, Pining, Realization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 06:46:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5154146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainshellhead/pseuds/captainshellhead, https://archiveofourown.org/users/vibraniumstark/pseuds/vibraniumstark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laurence has a realization.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Long Day

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to turn into a somewhat longer series of mutual pining and also some resolution. Unbeta'd.

The light touch on his shoulder startled Laurence to wakefulness, his mind already on edge after the eerie melody of the mysterious chanting had already woken the camp once. His heart was thumping in his chest, but the feeling quickly subsided when he realized who woke him. 

It was only Tharkay returning. Laurence had seen his bedroll empty earlier in the night, and his pack gone. He’d assumed he would return before they needed to strike camp, and so had not concerned himself with it. Tharkay was more than capable of taking care of himself. 

Laurence pushed himself up onto one elbow, and then fully to sitting when Tharkay passed him his canteen, filled to brimming and a blessed relief after bearing the heat of the day.

“Thank Heaven,” Laurence said. The canteen was dripping wet, and so he must not have gone far to fill it. Their party had likely just barely missed stumbling upon its source. He eyed Tharkay, who looked very well put together for having traipsed through the forest at night, his coat still pressed handsomely. The independence that Laurence had once found frustrating, he had come to hold with the utmost admiration, and certainly it had served them well tonight. Tharkay’s skill in tracking was invaluable. Laurence found himself once again incredibly thankful to have him in their company.

Still, Laurence looked to Tharkay questioningly. They were all of them thirsty, and had spent the better part of the day searching for water. Surely there was a reason that Tharkay had not roused the rest of the camp upon its discovery.

Tharkay, ever intuitive, caught his meaning. “I did not find our singers,” he began, and went on to explain his findings in his search of their campsite and their tracks.

So he had gone in search of the source of the singing, and found the remnants of their camp and water source only. Laurence watched him intently, what little light breaking through the trees reflecting in his dark eyes as his gaze drifted over the sleeping convicts as though attempting to pick out any idle ears in the campsite. 

Certainly it was not only curiosity that had Tharkay venturing off into the night alone, in search of the singers who may well have intended them harm as easily as not. No, Tharkay was not so reckless, and certainly not when Laurence depended on his help to find the stolen egg. He had had good reason to seek them out.

“The—smugglers?” Laurence ventured to guess. Tharkay turned his gaze back to him, pausing, his eyebrows raising just slightly, surprised and perhaps impressed; although Laurence could not accept the credit for the deduction, he was surprised himself how much the notion pleased him regardless. Another moment, and Tharkay had schooled his expression once again into the picture of passivity, and brought Laurence back to the topic at hand.

“I imagine you find I have been very close; although not so close as I might have prided myself upon,” Tharkay said. 

Laurence chuckled, and admitted that the theory had been Temeraire’s and not his.Tharkay only gave him a queer look, and Laurence quickly added that he would never have intended to pry, but that did not seem to satisfy him either, and so Laurence paused as he finally caught Tharkay’s meaning.

He was apologizing, in his way, for keeping the exact specifications of his assignment from Laurence. As though he owed Laurence any kind of explanation. He had agreed to help Laurence and Temeraire in their mission to retrieve the egg, despite the danger of it and with his own mission no less. Laurence hurried to reassure him.

“I am sufficiently in your debt,” he added, “that I hope you know I would be glad of an opportunity to make some return; and you need not make me explanations.”

Tharkay smiled charmingly, his teeth glinting in the darkness with such blatant amusement that Laurence felt a sympathetic thrill settle in his chest, despite not catching the joke. Perhaps Tharkay noticed, because his smile settled into something remarkably more genuine when Laurence returned it. 

“You are kind to make me such an offer; I can well imagine how little you would like in practice to lend yourself so blindly to another man’s course.” 

This Laurence had not considered; the split-second of apprehension was washed away in a moment, when whatever expression had crossed his face at that realization brought Tharkay’s amusement back to full force, his expressive eyes crinkling at the corners in a way usually reserved for open teasing. Laurence barely resisted protesting, exasperated, but Tharkay knew him too well, and the restraint was pointless. 

Tharkay was not wrong. He had spoken without thought, purely from impulse. Laurence did not like to act without first understanding his circumstances in full, and yet he found that he could not take the offer back. Normally, no, Laurence would not wish to blindly follow, _could not_ as his betrayal of Britain made clear, and yet...

And yet…

Tharkay was not just any man.

Laurence looked to him as though seeing him for the first time. He had been, once, but at some point over through their travels Tharkay had gone from a stranger to a trusted friend, and then to far more than that in the course of their voyage to Australia, which he had suffered through with no complaint despite Laurence’s dreadful circumstances, simply to offer him companionship. Laurence trusted him, had trusted him since he and Tharkay had come to their understanding in Istanbul, but somehow that feeling had grown, without Laurence’s noticing it. 

He felt dizzy with the realization, feeling at once as he had as a young boy knowing he would one day marry Edith, and yet at the same time entirely different, like he had been both washed overboard and plucked from the roiling clutches of a great wave in one motion.

Laurence managed a response, somehow, though his exact response he could not remember, only that Tharkay then invited him to find more privacy to continue their conversation. Laurence nodded mechanically and took Tharkay’s offered hand, allowing him to pull him to his feet, and did his best not to focus on the warmth of their pressed fingertips, oddly soft, unsurprisingly gentle.

Laurence wondered, as he followed Tharkay silently into the trees, if he had simply imagined the way the touch had lingered.


End file.
